MakersPlace, an NFT marketplace for digital art, announced Wednesday that it raised $30 million in a Series A round co-led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Pantera Capital. The San Francisco-based company plans to use the fresh capital to acquire new talent as it continues to scale.
MakersPlace touts itself as the first NFT marketplace to accept both cryptocurrency and non-cryptocurrency payments. NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, function as a type of digital asset and represent ownership of a virtual item such as digital artwork.
MakersPlace made headlines earlier this year when it sourced, minted and brought to market Beeple’s Everydays: The First 5000 Days. The digital work of art sold for a whopping $69.3 million.
Dannie Chu, co-founder and CEO of MakersPlace, told Built In via email that its platform was created to address “the exclusion of a huge demographic of skilled creators from the global art market.” It does this by harnessing NFTs to allow an artist to add their “permanent signature” to a digital work.
“As the first to do so, we have paved the way for digital artists to excel and prosper to levels unimaginable,” Chu continued. “We are excited about the success we have seen in the digital arts space and know that this is just the beginning.”
In addition to making headlines, the company has seen outstanding levels of growth over the last year. MakersPlace recently surpassed $100 million in total sales volume, according to the company. Not only that, but over the last 12 months the number of active collectors on its platform has increased by 10x.
MakersPlace credits part of this growth to its successful collaborations with digital artists like Pak and DeadMau5. The company, Chu adds, was strategically well positioned to respond to the pandemic, which also didn’t hurt its growth prospects.
“As the world spent more time online, we were able to capture new and existing audiences and grow exponentially. Additionally, as traditional art institutions (galleries, museums and exhibitions) were forced to explore and adopt online avenues,” Chu continued. “It helped shift consumer demand and appreciation for experiencing and purchasing art online, benefitting the digital art use case and [our] mission.”
Following the latest raise MakersPlace is set to go on a hiring spree. The company is now hiring for a dozen roles across its design, engineering and product teams, to name a few.
MakersPlace has raised $32 million in venture capital financing to date, according to the company.
Additional investors Uncork Capital, Draper Dragon and Digital Assets participated in the round, among others.
